The Four Seasons and the Four Winds ~ Serialisation

The Four Seasons and The Four Winds

TƒSs & TƒWs 2023

I

On 16 November 2020 I wrote that I’m often asked to present The Four Seasons as a Serial.

Publishing The Four Seasons in this manner comes from a request received quite some time ago from a family in the USA, who found that bedtime became less onerous in getting the little ones actually into bed and then to sleep ‘if Mom you read us the Four Seasons! … followed up with Our favourite bits. I’m not setting a date. It is more, to watch this space.

II

On 11 November 2022, I read this afresh. I ran a few segments but I was unhappy with the slant. I write as the mood directs me, and I enjoy that style of creative writing. I do not like it when I am advised that certain styles will be unacceptable.

I keep the Seasons more or less as I drafted them between October 2009 and September 2010 ~ observing the seasons as if they are four beautiful women. I recall the joy. The original artwork followed very liberal Art and Art Deco of the 1920s and 1930s, ironically, the liberalism wiped away in the space of a mere twelve years by one totalitarian regime. The artwork was in the style of Alfonse Mucha (1860-1939).

III

The Second Edition in 2015 brought two new dimensions or, as I prefer to see it, the other two sides of the triangle, seeing the world also through the eyes of men and seeing both the world and humankind through the eyes of the animal kingdom.

Seeing the world through the eyes of men is contentious. The men I refer to simply form part of that large community of people, worldwide, and which has become known by the cumbersome mnemonic LGBTQI+. In short, gay. And before everyone starts jumping up and down, keep in mind, I’m the guy who wrote Being Gay Being Bi Whatever in 2013 in my author name Ian Bradley Marshall.

Those three sides of the triangle enable me to introduce the fourth dimension, simply, that which we might call spiritual. Some will call it Twilight. In fact chatting to one of my friends in Liverpool the other week, we both found that we both especially like those hours between 6pm and 2am. His work now, (and my work over a lifetime) often centres upon that Twilght zone. I giggle at this, for Twilight also suggests Vampires and Shifter Romances. Readers… I have a very broad and liberal mind! And guess where I found that?

Yep, you’ve got it in one! LIVERPOOL!! Ha-ha.

Introducing that fourth dimension is what people have been doing since the dawn of time.

Nothing more. That which we love to read and learn about as tiny infants in all those gripping stories that would start Once Upon a Time… and always end… and they ALL lived happily ever after.

Right. Now.
It’s time to sleep.
Close your eyes,
here’s one last kiss
and it’s 3, 2, 1
and… lights out!
Nitey Nite.

(Wonderful memories).

2023-2024

I’m not entirely sure how my pen will meander the new edition of The Four Seasons and the Four Winds.

I will, of course, make full use of digital artwork which, alone, often inspires new lines, new stanzas, new perspectives.

For the past fourteen years, The Four Seasons opens with Autumn through the eyes of a beautiful woman. That theme remains. But I am true to my community, my people, and to Liverpool. So this opening chapter heralds an autumnal portrait of a man.

For the religious tut-tutters, it’s probably best if you ‘pass by on the other side’ as this writer ain’t budging even though I and my people - that some parts of the world would wish to see ended as an afront to their god - are a stench to their nostrils.

5 October 2023
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL

© 2023 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Digital Artwork by KTW